As the youth team I coached wrapped up practice, I realized that, for a brief moment, I’d been able to get Natalie out of my head.
Ironically, thinking about how I wasn’t thinking about her had brought me back around to thinking about her for real.
Why did Natalie freaking Toft have to be so goddamn adorable?
I wanted to hate her.
Needed to detest her after what her family had put me and my family through.
And for most of my life, I had hated her. Just like most of the town.
My father and my sister were dead, and both deaths could be traced to her father.
Someone needed to pay for her father’s sins, and she was the only worthy candidate. That was exactly why I’d agreed to the plan with Jared and Bob, shady as it was.
But once I was face-to-face with her, the second thoughts started.
She was doe-eyed. Innocent. Gorgeous. How was it her fault if her daddy wanted to spoil her?
She was much more than adorable.
Natalie was drop dead sexy.
She seemed totally oblivious to what she’d done to me. Hell, she didn’t even know my sister had passed away.
How had she not known? Maybe her parents kept her in the dark. Hell, if I were her dad I’d have fought like hell not to let my daughter know how evil of a man I truly was.
All day I’d fought to get the image of her strutting around her oven-hot house in skimpy short shorts and a tank top that I’d like to rip off.
Again.
Because I had ripped it off already. I’d seen her beautiful little breasts. Pert nipples that turned to arrows when I kissed her neck. She was mine and she knew it.
Natalie made me lose all control. Even just thinking about her scent brought back hints of arousal. I shuddered. I would not be doing that again.
Now that she was back here without the watchful eye of her father, or anyone--we could carry out the revenge we’d talked about for years. TK
I had to chuckle at the irony of her mother asking me to keep an eye on her. She and her mother had skipped town and were clueless for how badly they’d screwed over this place.
And it was time to pay the pied piper.
Shaking my head out, I refocused my eyes on the kids as they wrapped up. A few of them had taken off their skates, but the others were still skating around practicing puck handling on the rink. Meanwhile the older players in their twenties filed in for the recreational league game scheduled for after the youth team’s practice.
Skating over to the kids, I stopped in front of the most athletic one.
“Bet you can’t beat me in a race around the rink,” I quipped, baiting Danny.
“Bet you I can,” he retorted.
“You’re on. What’s the bet?” I asked him. “Will you bet me your chocolate bar?”
He looked longingly at a Hershey bar sitting on one of the front row seats just off the ice. I had brought one for each athlete at the beginning of the team’s practice since they played so well at last week’s game.
“What do I get if I win?” he asked.
“I’ll bring you another one, next practice.”
“You’re on,” Danny said. He was still single digit years old, and his skating skills were at the top of the youth team that I was coaching. And apparently my cockiness was rubbing off on him if he thought he could beat me, a twenty-three year old former college hockey star.
“I love the fire,” I said, giving him a high five. “I’ll give you a five second head start for that.”
As I skated over to the starting line, I noticed his mother file into the stadium, watching us from afar. Another man behind her dusted the snow off of his jacket. I didn’t recognize him as a parent. Was Miss Petrosevich dating again, perhaps? She was one of the single moms who brought their kids to my practice. Dated some douche who got her pregnant in her teens and then moved away. Situations like that happened a lot here, and I tried my damndest to be a father figure for the little boys and girls on the ice who didn’t have one.
I knew better than most how it felt not to have a father around.
I drew a line in the ice with the edge of my skate, and Danny and I lined up. I had a couple of the other kids from the team wait at the finish link to judge the victor.
Another kid, Joey, started the race for us. “Ready. Set. Go!”
Danny took off, flying down the ice as fast as his little legs could take him. I counted silently, One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
At five, I was off, flying down the ice.
About four fifths of the way down the rink, I passed him, and then crossed the finish line just before him.
“Awww, man!” he exclaimed, and then shook my hand as I’d taught all the kids to do after any competition. “Good race, Coach,” he said.
“Good race, Danny,” I said. “Guess you’ll have to train hard this week, eh?”
He nodded, seeming sad.
Some coaches and parents let their kids win, but my philosophy was, one day he’ll beat me easily. Until that day, make ‘em work. And I’d noticed Danny was dogging a few of the drills today, so I wanted to make sure he dialed it in for our next practice. Attitude was contagious, and he was a leader who the others looked up to.
As I put on my gear for my own rec game, and got the kids off the ice, he skated over to me, chocolate bar in hand.
Okay, now I felt like an asshole. No way was I actually going to collect on this bet.
“Keep it,” I said.
“Nope. You won it fair and square. That’s the rules.”
Damn. The kid had principles. I had to appreciate that.
“Alright. I’ll give you a second option--you can give it to someone else on the team if you want.”
“Okay.”
Danny stepped off the ice and made a beeline for Josh Hicks. Hicks was known to have parents who were drug addicts and would preference them over food in the house.
My heart burned seeing that, and I made a mental note to bring jerky or something a little more substantial than chocolate for them next time. Fucking A. Even though they were so young, they knew which kids were going hungry at home. Kids are so much smarter then we give them credit for.
Things were tough in Black Mountain for us who lived here year-round, in general. With the depressing weather and the minimal hours of sunlight, it had become unfortunately a hotbed for alcohol abuse, methamphetamines, fentanyl, and other pain-killers as of late. We’d reached epidemic proportions.
Crazy thing was, I could relate to why people wanted to take the pain away. You’d be so damn bored here, you’d go crazy cooped up inside all day in the cold and the dark. Painkilling drugs were a way to ease the pain of existence.
The kids exited the rink, and a few of the players from the rec team of twenty-somethings I played for filed onto the ice, giving me head nods. We were undefeated this year so far, thanks in no small part to my domination.
As I sat down in the first row of seats, adjusting my skates, Miss Petrosevich came up to me.
“Hey, Coach,” she said, standing in front of me, holding a tin. She had a giant smile on her face. “I made you something this morning.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said, waving it off. “I think I’m, ah, not supposed to really accept gifts from the parents, unfortunately. Shows favoritism. You know how Mrs. Marsik gets when her kid doesn’t get enough minutes.”
I didn’t mean to be rude, but I also didn’t want to send any funny messages to her. She was a young single mom, and a great person, and yes, cute, but dating the parents of my kids wasn’t something I was interested in. “It’s lemon bars.”